On Politics of Light

This is not easy to understand
For you that come from a distant land
Where all the colours are low in pitch -
Deep purples, emeralds deep and rich,
Where autumn's flaming and summer's green -
Here is a beauty you have not seen.

- Excerpt from The Colours Of Light by Dorothea Mackellar

When I was five or six, we moved into a house in Junagadh Dairy Colony, freshly constructed. I remember clearly we had put up yellow light bulbs. The logic was assumed but since there was a discussion it reached me, in words. I was being educated in a way to think about light. My father explained to my mother that we will buy cheaper bulbs until all the electricity connections are tested, and later on we can purchase the more expensive tubelights. Tubelights were the goal: they are of course more cost efficient since it gave more and brighter light per watt and had a longer life. Cheap yellow bulbs something to endure until we reach the goal.

"Yeah, I know, it's dim, but I prefer yellow light. I can't stand bright white light"

My housemate said in a rather disparaging patronising tone, on my first day I moved in my place in Chennai. She was responding to my observation that it was almost dark in the living room, I had not mentioned the colour of light anywhere in my sentence, but perhaps the colour of my skin and my accent spoke more to her than my words. 

"Aree yaar, mujhe toh na yeh bulb ki roshni bahut bekaar lagti hai. Thodi der main na aankhe dukhne lagti hain."

[Buddy, I don't like this bulb light at all. My eyes start hurting after sometime.]

A friend from work confided in me. I murmured how what perhaps needs to be adjusted is the intensity of the light and maybe the colour has nothing to do with anything.

My poorest friends, banarasi saree weavers, who live in a mud-tile-roofed house in Banaras and do not have a direct electricity connection, use bulbs. They hope to make a shed for this bulb shared between two families (living in small adjoining rooms) and buy a tube light someday. 

My richer friends, or upward mobile friends, especially female ones, have a preference for yellow bulbs. They think it is more classy, softer tones, etc. Makes them feel good about themselves I guess. Most of my friends who have spent time in Canada, or USA have understood that yellow light is "superior" to white light. They move from tubelights to yellow light that seeps out of the decorated and artistically shaped orifices of table lamps.

A twist in the story when fluorescent bulbs and LEDs come about. These bulbs are essentially like tubelights in their work, but come in smaller wattage. People can choose to have them in white or yellow. These are expensive compared to bulbs and tubelights. Go to any electric store, the fluorescent bulbs on offer are all white. Ask for yellow the shopkeeper may shake his head twice, before he may remembers he has this one small box with three yellow FLs sitting somewhere for last few months/ years. Demand for yellow FLs is very small. A very good friend from Gujarat has redecorated his house, befitting a preparation for marriage. They have spend a small fortune on their living room's evenly distributed LED lights: white.

When I was a student in IIT-BHU (Banaras Hindu University) in winter of 2003 and 2004, I started the fashion of keeping two 200 watt bulbs turned on in my room for a few hours before bedtime - instead of using a 1000 watt heater, since using heater was against the rules. This caught on. Yellow bright light, too bright in fact,and hot.

One of my best friends and I roamed around the streets of Banaras, looking for small 11W fluorescent bulbs. Finally when in one shop we found these, we bought a large number 30 or so of these for all the lamps for the whole year! Outside the sand storms brew: August rainy and stormy evening. Inside we wrote stories, journals, and planned curriculum for our children [from all economic classes and backgrounds] sitting in these cozy dim - Yellow lights.